Mark Reads ‘The Lord of the Rings’ Appendices: Part II

It seems there’s quite a bit of this book left, so I’m hoping that I can squeeze another post out of these appendices. It’s more apparent to me now that Tolkien had imagined a world so large that massive parts of the story had to appear in appendices. Like, holy shit, my brain can’t even process that. THIS UNIVERSE IS IMMENSE. WHAT IS HAPPENING.

Let’s continue on with more of the Appendices!

APPENDIX C: Family Trees

Sam founded a family named Gardner. That’s just so beautiful to me.

Oh wait, it’s literally family trees. Oh.

Why was I surprised by that?

APPENDIX D: Shire Calendar For Use in All Years

How rad would it be if this allowed you to convert our time to Shire time? I am writing this before turning the page, so this BETTER BE RIGHT.

OH MY GOD I WAS BORN ON THE 23RD OF WINTERFILTH. Well, okay, that’s not an exact science, BUT YOU CAN’T TAKE THIS FROM ME. That sounds so badass.

“I am not skilled in these matters, and may have made many errors.” What dude you invented this you literally cannot be wrong about it what

You know, I don’t know that I’m gleaming much information from this, but it’s totally fascinating to me that different cultures in Middle-earth measure time differently based on their society’s perception of the world. THIS IS GOOD I LIKE IT A LOT.

Okay, I was being harsh on Tolkien. I think it’s kind of neat that this is written as if he truly unearthed the Red Book and other documents, and then composed The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit as historical storytelling. yes good.

APPENDIX E: Writing and Spelling

Oh, this is going to be just riveting, isn’t it? This man INVENTED LANGUAGES. Oh shit, I’m about to be overwhelmed, aren’t I?

oh

oh my god

oh my god

no

NO

MAKE IT STOP

OKAY I GET IT

WAIT THERE’S ANOTHER PAGE

um

oh my god it’s not ending

PART II??? oh my god how many parts are there

“The Fëanorian Letters” about 0% of my body cares about this

I know many of you have studied this and I think that’s lovely, but this is not meant for me.